


When You Wish Upon a Lamp...

by MagicQuill42



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Open Ending, djinn, lamps but no LAMP, not genies and don't call him one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 01:01:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21045707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicQuill42/pseuds/MagicQuill42
Summary: Logan lives a boring life, essentially just resting in his lamp, waiting for someone else to find him. Waiting to grant their wishes. Waiting to twist their words and teach them a lesson about carefulness the way he was taught to. Waiting to be done with the whole mess and rest in his lamp again.He was used to that, expected it.He wasn't expecting Roman.





	When You Wish Upon a Lamp...

Logan grimaced a little as he felt the lamp get rubbed. His body dispersed into blue smoke and he schooled his features into cool disinterest as he regathered outside of the lamp. 

“Greetings.” He said. “I am the djinn of the lamp. You-”

“Djinn? Not genie?” 

Logan raised a brow and looked down at the speaker. He was a man about the age that Logan looked with styled brown hair and glittering brown eyes widened in curiosity. Logan tried to refrain from rolling his eyes.

“Yes, djinn. Genie is the Anglicized version of the name, and rather insensitive to use casually. May I continue?” 

The man nodded. “Oh yes, please.”

“Thank you. You have three wishes, which come with stipulations,” Logan continued. “You cannot wish for more wishes, you cannot wish for someone to love you, and you cannot wish to raise the dead. Outside of these, you may wish for anything that your heart desires.” 

The man nodded slowly. “Right. Uhhh… I don’t actually wish for anything right now.”

Logan nodded curtly. “Very well, when you procure an idea for a wish, simply rub the lamp and-”

“Well now hold on!” The man exclaimed. “Why do you have to leave so soon, we only just met!”

Logan raises an eyebrow. “Yes… and after your wishes are spent then the two of us shall part ways and never speak again. So I see no point in the two of us getting to know one another.”

The man frowned. “Well now that’s just quitter talk. Come on, have a seat!”

He sat down on a nearby couch and pat the seat next to him. Logan took a deep breath and sat down, posture stiff and back straight. The man smiled at him. 

“So!” He said cheerfully. “My name is Roman. What’s yours?”

“Mantiq, though I tend to go by Logan in English-dominated countries. Both have their origins in the word ‘logic.’” He said. 

Roman nodded. “Huh. I would never have guessed a ge- djinn to have a name like ‘Logic.’” 

Logan shrugs. “It is not terribly uncommon. Many djinn are named after aspects of the mind.”

“Fascinating…” Roman breathed. 

“May I leave now?” Logan asked. 

Roman’s face fell a little. “Alright… if you insist.”

Logan nodded and let himself disperse into smoke again, funneling back into his lamp. He laid down on his pile of cushions and resumed reading his scroll on astrology. This new lamp owner seemed like he was going to be very annoying.

***

It was three weeks until the lamp got rubbed again and Logan braced himself for an asinine wish he’d be obligated to fulfill. 

His smoke regathered outside the lamp and he regarded Roman. 

“Yes?”

Roman’s face went a little pink around the edges and he pointed to the chess board in front of him. 

“This is going to sound so silly,” he laughed nervously. “But would you play a game of chess with me?”

Logan stared at the chess set for a minute before looking back up at Roman incredulously. 

“Why?”

Roman shrugged. “I want to get better at it. And with a name like ’logic’ you seem like a guy who’d know how to play chess, a worthy opponent and someone who can really test my skills!”

“Yes but…” Logan faltered, searching for the words in English to express what was filtering through his head. “Why ask me to play? Why not simply ask me to make you the world’s foremost chess player? It is not as if that would be a difficult request.”

“Well I did think about it!” Roman laughed. “But ultimately it’s not that big a deal. I’d rather save my wishes and just practice. Besides! If I just wish for it and it happens, what would I learn from it?”

Logan arched an eyebrow. “I know that. However, in my experience, humanity as a whole has a hard time remembering that lesson.”

Roman blinked at him, staring for a moment before smiling. 

“Guess that just makes me special then!” 

Logan huffed. “It certainly makes you something.”

Roman rolled his eyes. “Do you want to play or not?”

Logan shrugged and sat across from his lamp’s owner. “I suppose. Do you wish to be the white or black pieces?”

Roman hums before spinning the board until the white pieces were facing him. He grinned at Logan. 

“I’ll be the white pieces!” 

***

If you had asked Logan before, he would have guessed Roman was incompetent at chess. Seeing as he possessed no common sense or forethought if his reaction to finding a djinn was anything to go by. 

But three games in and Logan found him to be… remarkably astute! He even won a game. Once and only the first time, simply because Logan underestimated him. 

They played silently until Logan’s burning curiosity finally got the better of him. 

“Why chess?” He asked. 

Roman glances up at him, moving his knight. “Whatdya mean?”

“What I mean,” Logan corrected. “Is… you do not seem the type of person to sit down and take this up recreationally. I wouldn’t think you have the… patience for it.”

Roman raised an eyebrow at him. “Listen Specs, I know I seem dumb, you don’t have to sugarcoat things.”

Logan felt his face grow warm. “That isn’t-“

“It’s fine.” Roman laughed. “And frankly, my actual reason for getting into chess is pretty dumb too.”

Logan raised an eyebrow and Roman looked away shyly. 

“…it’s… a guy. We met in a park while he was playing chess so I learned it to impress him. We’ve got a date next Tuesday in that same park and I wanted to make sure I actually knew how to play before embarrassing myself.”

Logan blinked, then chuckled, moving to capture Romans knight. “Well… I have heard stupider reasons for gaining a talent.”

“Oh really?” Roman said, counter attacking and stealing Logan’s rook with a smirk. “Like what?”

Logan thought for a moment. “I believe the prize for stupidest wish goes to a rajah I once served under. He wanted to have the skill of juggling plates so that his doves could land on the tops and impress his pond fish. He did not, you will note, wish for his doves to be good at landing on plates or for pond fish to care about such things.”

Roman laughed. “Poor guy. He sounds a few notes short of a song if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, he was.” Logan agreed. “He also held the record for fastest expense of all three wishes for decades before a farmer two coasts over used all three in one minute. A record which still holds, I might add.”

Roman let out a low whistle and took Logan’s Bishop. “Wow. And I thought I was being foolish. What if one of those wishes ended up killing someone? They’d be out of wishes so they couldn’t turn the clock back to when that person was alive. Not, I’ll point out, a violation of the resurrection rule. Since it’s more of a reset of the whole planet than restarting one person.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “You’ve certainly thought that through.” He moved his knight. 

Roman shrugged. “I think I watched too much Aladdin as a kid. I overthought things like g- djinn and magic stuff. While other kids were doing sports or climbing trees or whatever normal kids do, I was usually inside trying to figure out the science behind dragon’s breath.”

Logan chuckled. “Now that I believe. What conclusion did you come to on that?”

“Glands in the mouth.” Roman said simply. “Two glands filled with chemicals that ignite when mixed. And a saliva made of a flame proof substance.”

Roman moves again, right into Logan’s trap. His eyes sharpened and a small thrill ran up his spine. Two more moves and the game was his. 

Logan moved his remaining rook, feeling his lips quirk upward. “That’s remarkably intelligent for a child. Especially for one as seemingly foolish as yourself.”

“Yeah, well I’m pretty used to being underestimated.”

Roman moved his queen one final time, looking up at Logan victoriously. 

“Check and mate.”

***

The next summons came a month and a half later. Logan had been tugged away from his novel and was ready to groan and give Roman an earful when the sound of sniffling caught his ear. He turned to see Roman lying on the couch, lamp clutched to his chest as tears coursed down his face.

To call Logan surprised would be a massive understatement. Especially when roman’s head slowly raised and he seemed almost surprised to see logan there as well.

“S-Sorry.” He stammered. “Must’ve rubbed it by accident. I- I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s quite alright.” Logan said, as softly as he could manage.

He settled down on the couch next to Roman, unsure if offering tactile comfort would be welcome or unwanted and unsure how to proceed otherwise. So they just sat in silence for a few minutes, Logan not wanting to leave Roman wholly alone while he was distressed.

“It’s so stupid.” Roman choked out after what felt like an eternity. “It’s so stupid and I shouldn’t have gotten so attatched to such a new relationship, right? It’s stupid, I’m jus- just being stupid.”

“Roman from what little I have seen of you, you are hardly stupid. Foolhardy and reckless, perhaps, but not stupid.” Logan said calmly.

Roman sobbed again. “Oh…”

Silence fell over them again and Roman’s sobs only barely slowed. 

“…We broke up.” Roman said, out of nowhere, tears still falling steadily down his face. “We broke up and that would be fine if- if- He had some side guy. A little piece of work, but cute, I guess. And that would have been okay too- well not okay, I mean we were dating but I could have moved on but he said… he said-” 

Roman’s voice broke as his tears renewed themselves. He suddenly thrust the lamp at Logan, curling around himself and hugging his own knees. 

“My- my first wish.” Roman stammered. “Lo- Logan, I command you to make- make me worthy of love.”

The thrill of a wish that logan always got was immediately squashed at its contents. Wishes… Wishes were dangerous. Almost as dangerous as people, sometimes.

With a heavy heart, Logan set his lamp on the coffee table and rose to his feet. He snapped his fingers, the sound seeming to echo through reality itself. A cloud of blue smoke engulfed Roman and pulsed for a few moments before dispersing.

Roman pat at himself, looking at his own hands and feeling for changes. 

He looked up at Logan, betrayed and disappointed. “Nothing happened.”

“Correct.”


End file.
